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La Zébrée 8b+ trad redpointed by Jean-Pierre Ouellet

On May 12 Jean-Pierre Ouellet redpointed La Zébrée 8b+ at Mont-King, Canada, placing all the gear except the first piece on lead.

Remember La Zébrée, the 8b+ trad route in Canada's Mont-King climbed by Jean-François Beaulieu in 2004 and hailed as one of America's hardest cracklines? At the time Jean-François climbed the mammoth crack pinkpoint, knowing full-well that the next step would be to climb the route placing the gear on the lead. Well, on May 12 his climbing partner Jean-Pierre Ouellet upped the ante and led the whole pitch, placing all the gear as he went bar the first piece to avoid the rope drag and weird landing.

Jean-Pierre estimates to have attempted the route between 50-60 times prior to the successful ascent, removing the gear from the wildly steep line after each attempt. That's determination for you! While Jean-Pierre searches for a new project this season, check out his full report below:

The route is very steep, has two roofs and leans quite to the left. Very weird angle. It's 25 meters long and overhangs for about 13 meters. Since I wanted to climb the route placing the gear I also had to figure out a way to clean the gear... You can't just rap and clean (like you would do on Sphinx or Phoenix...). So I had to down aid to some in-situ nuts (which I did not clip when leading) after every try and then swing and pull while lowering to clean the whole thing. Quite tiring...

I probably attempted the route 50-60 time over 3 years. I did it on my 10th try this season. I trained at the Red for 3 weeks before realizing that it had not rained for 10 days at Val David... So I sprinted back home to start try it. I felt pretty strong and the route was exceptionally dry (although on the first day I still had to clean it for 5 hours, and 2 the next morning).

I preplaced the first piece because the landing is pretty weird and the rope would get caught in the first roof when I tried to place the gear low in the first section... You could do the first roof with a 2nd rope and you could drop it after you pass it ... But I had enough work trying to keep the route dry every day and cleaning the gear after every try...